Death Unexpected
by northtreker
Summary: A "what if?" story focusing on the ramifications of a significantly altered event from the episode Father Unfigured. Features Fern Redmund heavily.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 World Spins Madly On - The Weepies

Fern Redmund jerked awake her breath momentarily caught in a spasm of anxiety. Her consciousness raced to catch up with her instinctive response when the cause of her reaction again assaulted the night. Groaning, Fern reached out for the ringing cell. Warily, she brought it to her and flipped it open. "The phone rarely brings good news," she thought, flipping it open, and flinched as her eyes focused on the display, "and never after two A.M."

Nevertheless, she had pressed accept and had the phone to her ear before the third ring. "Fern Redmund? This is the Mercy Medical Center in Redding, California. My name is Javier Trujillo, I'm a registered nurse, and I am calling from the shock trauma intensive care unit."

"Shock Trauma? Redding? That's, what, more than six hours from here."

The voice on the other end gave the harried noncommittal response of an overworked nurse before continuing on, "Our records indicate that you are the in loco parentis guardian of Lux Cassidy?"

"No, that would be Nathaniel Bazile and Cate Cassidy." Fern replied by rote before the import of the situation hit her. "Wait, why? What's happened."

The voice remained businesslike, but compassion leaked in around the edges. "There has been a car accident. Lux is in critical but stable condition in the STICU. I'm sorry, I cannot give more details over the phone."

Fern mouthed the words three times before she could will the air from her lungs to give voice to her thoughts, "and her parents?"

The voice hesitated long enough for Fern to tug on her jeans and flats before simply saying, "they were pronounced at the scene."

Fern had slipped on a shirt and palmed her keys before the Nurse had time to hang up his phone.

* * *

Lux fled in terror from a nightmare image of an infinitely vast mangled bloody cage that screamed in a rage of twisting metal and shattering glass. Somewhere within her was the knowledge that escape would only come from waking up, but the monstrous possibilities that reality presented made the horrors of the awful cage almost comical in comparison and so she ran on.

* * *

Fern clicked her phone open and shut effectively canceling yet another call from the social services of Washington State; she had argued with her boss enough for one day. It had been sixteen hours and the agency wanted her to return home until "Lux's situation resolved". "Resolved," Fern turned the word over in her mind. It reminded her of a revolving microwave dinner just waiting to be consumed and discarded. She knew she was too close, that she wasn't supposed to prioritize any particular case, any particular child, over another, but Lux was supposed to be her happy ending. In all of the horrific cases she had worked, in all of the inevitable tragedies they had devolved into, Lux had been a glittering bright spot that had kept her going. A foster ward who had been reunited with her birth parents, and, moreover, birth parents who were reasonably competent and completely devoted.

Sighing, Fern flipped her phone open and dialed through her list of contact numbers. Mr. Bazile's family had reported that Baze's parents were in the Bahamas on their yacht and were not expected back until the end of next week. She dialed the cell phone they had provided but didn't bother leaving a message. It wouldn't contain anything the previous ten did not. She hesitated before calling Cate's mother, she checked her notes quickly for the name, Laverne, again, but she had promised to keep the frantic mother updated.

Wincing, she recalled the earlier call. It had been quarter after ten when Fern had arrived at the hospital and finally been cleared to interview a doctor. It was maybe ten after eleven when she had begun her first round of calls.

"Yes, hello!" Laverne Cassidy's voice had snapped over the line in tones consumed by frantic panic yet strangely slurred.

Fern had only just been able to hear the mechanical qualities of her own words infused with her own shock held in check, if only just, as it was. "I'm calling about Lux-"

"Lux. Oh, shit Lux. Is she...is she-"

"She is alive, but her case is serious. She is going to need her family with her."

"Serious? Serious how?"

Fern had drawn a deep breath trying to order and summarize the list of issues and medical jargon that the doctor had supplied her with into a form she felt able to relate, "She had a number of broken bones and internal injuries. She suffered a number of cardiac arrests in transit." she had drawn a deep somewhat ragged breath, "and there is evidence of a stroke. Currently...currently she is in a coma and they can't asses the degree of damage, if any."

Laverne hadn't answer for so long that Fern had begun to fear she had collapsed. Finally, weakly, the voice came back, "But, but she is alive? Is...is Cate then?"

"I'm sorry." Fern had tried to coax some warmth into the words, but there was none within her to be found.

"That is...that's what they had said." Laverne's voice had carried a defeated note then.

"But Lux. Lux is alive," she had tried to stress, "and she is going to need you. Please, come down to the hospital."

"I can't," the small voice had returned.

"Why not?" Fern could not have helped the acerbic note that crept in.

"My license... Abby, my youngest...my, my daughter, she is my ride. But she is in the hospital."

"Oh, no," Fern had breathed, "was she in the car too?"

"No. Food poisoning. A thread worm from bad sushi."

"And your license?"

"I... DUI... Oh God I am the worst mother in the world." That had been the end of any meaningful conversation. All Lavergne could do was sob. Fern had promised to keep in touch, but she just didn't have the strength within her to hold another hand.

Glancing down, the small pale hand curled within her darker fingers was haloed in light through the film of her tears. She snapped the phone open one last time and called human resources telling them that she was in the hospital and felt too unwell to come in for a few days. Both true in their way, although she doubted her supervised would be amused. Then she held her thumb over the power key shutting the phone down all the way. Shutting herself down all the way. For the time she had had as much as she could handle.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Wreck on the Highway - Bruce Springsteen

Fern was amazed how quiet the noise of the PICU could be. All about her sounded small soft beeps from the monitoring equipment standing vigil on room after room of small broken bodies. The louder, slightly unsteady, report of Lux's EKG mingling with softer more distant tones in an asyncopated harmony. Beneath that came the rustle of scrubs and the padding of feet as nurses and doctors made their rounds. The overhead fluorescents, by no means dim, were somehow softer now that visiting hours were technically over. An effort had been made to send Fern home, but she had effectively barricaded herself in the corner on a small metallic chair. The doctors and nurses had come to a silent consensus to maintain the polite fiction that Fern was not present, and Fern, for her part, had done nothing to interfere.

In consequence of the peculiar stillness in pattern of the place, Fern's attention was immediately grabbed by a new dissonance: stomping and dragging feet, and then a loud smack of hands against the double doors leading into the ward. Fern was on her feet even before a vaguely familiar voice crying Lux tore across the unit. Stepping out into the nurses plaza, Fern locked eyes on a vaguely familiar man in his mid thirties. The man's short hair was ragged and his eyes were red and exhausted. But he stood tall, almost six feet, held erect by a manic energy. His eyes locked on hers for a minute and his brows drew together in concentration. A flicker of recognition crossed his face.

"Fern?" Only a slight strain in his voice betrayed his effort to resist the two orderlies who ineffectually tried to drag him out of the PICU.

Fern inclined her head in acknowledgment.

"I'm Ryan Thomas." When Fern's expression didn't change he elaborated, "I'm, I'm Cate's fiancé."

"Right," Fern clicked her fingers in annoyance, "I'm sorry. You weren't on my emergency list."

With the tacit acknowledgment of the resident ward wraith the orderlies eased their hold and Ryan shrugged free. The pair retreated to a couple of vending machines discreetly placed in a distant corner by the bathrooms.

"I'm sorry-" Fern began again but Ryan help up his hand cutting her off.

"Just tell me...she- tell me...is she...is she-?"

"She's alive." Fern cut in, sensing the direction of his thoughts.

Ryan sagged against the vending Machine. "I. My cell phone. The batteries had run down. Cate. She hadn't gone to work. I tried calling her cell. I thought...I thought maybe something had come up with Lux again and we covered for her. I went to Cate's house to wait for her. I was worried. Laverne called the station at noon. The show ends at eleven. I wasn't...I wasn't in Cate's emergency contact. They didn't call me last night. The station, they called my home and my cell. But I was at Cate's and my cell was dead. It wasn't until four that I thought of calling the station. I couldn't have thought why she would be there. They told me what Laverne had said about the accident. When I got here. I wasn't...I wasn't family. They wouldn't let me see her. They wouldn't even talk to me. It took an hour to hear that...to hear that. Oh, God, is she really?"

Fern bowed her head.

Ryan drew a shuddering breath. "And then...and then a nurse had asked me if I was the father. 'Of who,' I had asked. 'Lux' she had said. And then I was running here. I had no idea." Blinking, Ryan looked about. "Where is Baze."

"Mr. Bazile had been in the car as well."

Ryan's widening eyes asked his question for him and Fern shook her head slightly.

"Oh...fuck..." Ryan breathed, dragging his fingers through his already ragged hair and then turned and delivered a frustrated blow to the side of the Coca-cola machine causing the light that illuminated the panel to flicker and then die.

Fern watched warily as the much larger man's chest heaved as he struggled to regain mastery of his breathing, of himself. Pushing himself off the wall, he strode into the large square edged by the private PICU rooms. "I need to see her," he said walking steadily.

After hesitating a moment Fern steered him somewhat toward the side, toward Lux's room. The sixteen year old looked much the same. Her blonde hair was fanned across the pillow. A number of wires were interspersed into the mane connecting to the scalp. Tenderly, Ryan caught a lock and traced his fingers along the loosely spiraling curl it made. If it wasn't for the hair he almost might not have recognized her. Her usually bright blue eyes were swollen shut and ringed with still developing bruises. Her nose was swollen and a metal brace was arranged along the slide supporting the shattered cartilage back into its usual form. A plastic tube was draped across her face, two prongs protruding into her nostrils. Her right cheek from where her jawbones met to the base of her chin was covered in a large white gauzy bandage. Her right shoulder and right forearm were wrapped in plaster while her left arm hung curiously limp. A hole was cut into the plaster on her arm and two IV lines were fed into it. Her right knee was encased in a balloon of gauze and the foot beneath was encased in plaster. Her pale skin was coated in a fine layer of sweat and had an unnerving yellowish undertone. A catheter leaked a slow but steady stream of dark red fluid into a bag already three quarters full. The heart monitor revealed an odd stumbling pattern that even Ryan's TV trained medical knowledge could tell was unhealthy and her breaths came too fast and too shallow.

Standing side by side the two weren't quite aware when their fingers intertwined, each needing the other to stand upright. Neither was entirely sure how much time they stood there hypnotized by the basilisk like spectacle before them, but eventually their mutual trance was broken by a polite knock on the glass door. An older doctor with combed hair and a neatly trimmed short beard, each as white as his immaculate jacket, stepped in. "Mrs...Redmund?" The doctor greeted with an element of a question.

Fern inclined her head and extended her hand. The doctor softly took it and then turned to Ryan, "and Mr. ?"

"Thomas."

The doctor gave Fern another look for permission to speak about the patient in front of the new guest. At her nod, he extended his hand to Ryan and said, "I'm Doctor Bastian. Have either of you noticed any changes?" At their mutual head shakes he ventured farther into the room. "Well, that is not necessarily surprising in a case like this" he said abstractedly, checking a quieter screen displaying a series of sinusoidal lines that Fern hadn't understood. "This is an EEG, an electroencephalogram. This pattern, he traced his fingers along the lines, represents an alpha state."

"I'm sorry," Ryan cut in, "but what exactly does that mean."

"Well," the Doctor breathed in trying to pick his words carefully, "in general, that is good news. Alpha waves are most typically seen in people who are awake. It means that Lux's mind is active and, at some level, alert."

"That does sound promising..." Fern voiced while her entire being braced for the but.

"Yes, but, like I said these brain waves are typically associated with conscious individuals." He paused and gauging their blank responses decided to press the point farther. "it means," he elaborated gently, "that she should be awake. But she isn't, she is still clearly comatose...and we don't know why. In general its best to allow the patient to come to on her own. Stimulants pose dangerous side effects, although we may resort to them if her condition persists."

Ryan licked his lips, "So...so when will she wake up?"

Again Doctor Bastian hesitated. "Well, I am looking into comas with Lux's particulars, but, in general, most patients wake within the first three days. If the coma persists the prognosis grows more concerning, but people do regain consciousness sometimes years later. And as a minor she will be held on life support indefinitely." Thinking for a moment the doctor made a note in Lux's file and pressed a button on the paddle on her bed. A moment later a nurse poked his head into the room. Addressing him Bastian said, "I am going to order another MRI, can you check and see when the machine will be available?" To the observers he related, "We had been doing regular MRIs until we were certain that the heparin had the stroke well under control. But I want to make sure there are no new pathways preventing Lux from returning to us."

"Wait. Stroke?" Ryan asked in a strangled voice.

Dr. Bastian's eyes flickered between Fern and Ryan. "Yes...I'm sorry. I assumed you had been briefed." At the small shake of Ryan's head the doctor glanced at his watch, sighed, and then suggested that Ryan and Fern take a seat. Still working over Lux the doctor began, "at 16:45 the local EMS survives received a call. The caller had been flagged down by the driver of a pickup truck who had witnessed a head on collision between a jeep and a small bus. The caller relayed that he thought there were injured people and a squad car and an ambulance were dispatched." As he spoke, he gently pulled Lux's eyes open and shown in a bright pen light. Jotting something down, he continued, "the police officers arrived approximately five minutes later and, after assessing the situation, radioed for an emergency transport helicopter. Calstar responded. Lux is lucky, they are one of the best. The accident happened aways away," he paused checking the admission form and the notes provided by the EMTs. "Someplace in southern Modoc National park along the 139. Calstar had a relatively nearby base, which was fortunate, but it still took forty two minutes to get to Lux and bring her to shock trauma."

Glancing over at the distress on Fern and Ryan's face he broke off that line dialogue and, removing a sharp metal probe, pressed it into Lux's right fingers recording a note as they reflexively curled within their cast. "The teenaged female...Lux, presented severe injuries and a lack of consciousness or respiration but had maintained a weak heart beat. Emergency stabilization techniques were employed. The adult male and female," he broke off and took a deep breath and said sadly, "the adults did not evince signs of life at the scene and failed to respond to emergency resuscitation techniques."

Ryan sagged deeper into the chair, clinging to the arm rests as if to consciousness.

Giving it a moment Dr. Bastian decided to restrict his report to Lux. He used the same probe to press down into the toes of Lux's feet again making notes about how her feet curled away. "Lux had lost a significant amount of blood and an emergency transfusion of o negative was begun. About two minutes into the flight Lux suffered the first of thirteen cardiac arrests. Most responded to doses of atropine and cardiac compression but one necessitated defibrillation which seems to have produced a persistent, if weak, arrhythmia,"

Glancing at them he forced a smile. "Don't worry. This isn't that unusual and isn't an immediate cause for concern." Continuing around Lux's hospital bed Bastian came to her left hand. Again he applied the small metal spur, and then when it failed to illicit a response pressed harder. As each finger failed to respond his frown deepened and he took a minute to write a much longer note before running through his memory of the chart to continue the debriefing. While stabilizing her heart, a portable x ray machine revealed a number of fractures. There were simple fractures in the right metatarsals one through five at about the midline. The long bones in her right foot had broken down the middle. Four of her right ribs had suffered compound fractures. Two of her left ribs and one of her right ribs suffered a simple fracture. There is a compound complex break of her right ulna. There is," he hesitated, "there was extensive damage to her right knee. It will have to be replaced."

Ryan blanched. "What do you mean replaced?"

"It appears that Lux was able to partially brace herself with her knee. In many ways this is a good thing. In many accidents at speed the patient continues forward until their heads impact something and wind up with severe neck injuries. While Lux has some minor whiplash, there is no damage to her spinal cord, and the primary injuries to her ribs and chest could have been much worse. Although, these were exacerbated by later necessary life sustaining techniques. The damage to the joint itself is, unfortunately, irreparable." Turning back, Dr. Bastian lifted and examined the catheter bag and made a note of its contents and the time. "Once we had her stabilized we sent her to radiology for a CaT scan. That's when we learned she had suffered a second stroke."

"I'm sorry," Fern broke in, "did you say a second stroke."

"Yes, uh..." flipping through a couple pages in the manila file Dr. Bastian came across the right report, "The specialist said that it happened one to four years ago judging from the pattern of scarring and regrowth. Both strokes occurred in the primary motor cortex. The original stroke occurred in the anterior region near the linguistic interface while the new stroke seems to have extended the region of damage deeper into the maind body of motor cortex. We caught it within the first hour and treated aggressively with warfarin and heparin to thin the blood minimizing any other existing blood clots and maximizing flow to prevent localized neural anoxia. It's difficult to say at this point what effect, if any, this will have on Lux. The brain is wonderfully plastic, especially in teenagers." Subtly indicating the catheter bag, the doctor continued in a softer voice, "I'm going to need order a few more units of blood, it's nothing dire; we're just doing maintenance, but I can't keep raiding the emergency blood supply. Lux's early file is a little...sporadic, do either of you know what her blood type is, or if she has any allergies?"

Fern and Ryan shared a guilty quick glance. "...I'm sorry, I can't remember" Fern slowly admitted.

Forcing a smile to keep the mood of the room from slipping further, Dr. Bastian said in a brisk voice, "well, not to worry. We have plenty of latex free line for the moment and I need to order an AST/ALT anyhow, well just add an ABO grouping to it as well." His pen scratched on the page as he spoke, adding to the already unwieldy list of notes and orders.

Ryan felt his anxiety growing as the doctor began to collect his tools and paperwork making evident preparations for departure, snapping his hand out to grab the doctor's shoulder he said hurriedly, "Wait an AT...what ever that was. What is that? Why does she need more blood? Is that blood coming out of the catheter?"

The doctor glanced at his watch and then bit his lip. Turning he gently broke Ryan's grip and then leaned against the doorway. "Listen, for now the most important thing to know is that Lux is stable and we are keeping an eye on her. She isn't getting worse and if she does we'll know about it quickly. Yes, Lux is passing blood. We noticed signs of kidney damage in the CatTand placed a catheter and started fluids. Once we had the stroke well in hand we did a high resolution MRI to determine the exact extent of the stroke and to rule out any critical organ damage." He held up his hands to forestall the obvious questions. "There is some internal bruising which the blood thinning agents used to treat the stroke have exacerbated. But we are keeping an eye on it. That's part of the reason for the new MRI. The fact that Lux is passing blood is actually a good thing. It means that her kidneys are flushing."

If Ryan sat any closer to the edge of his chair he couldn't help but fall to the floor. "She has organ damage! Is she going to need a transplant or...?"

"No no. Probably not. I don't think it will come to that. Lux suffered an extreme deceleration and internal bruising is a very common consequence. She has a grade two hepatic hematoma and a grade two and grade three renal hematoma with some degree of internal bleeding of the right kidney where some of the lesser capillary bundles were partially detached. A surgical response remains an option but given the recent strain to her heart and her idiopathic coma I'm reluctant to put her under anesthesia. She's young. Let us give her time to recover on her own and meanwhile, you have my word, we'll keep a close eye on her." Sliding the door open he deposited the chart in a sleeve in the wall and, turning to give Fern and Ryan a comforting smile, stepped back and ducked into the adjacent room.

A few minutes later another nurse padded over and retrieved the file from its wall holder. Sticking her head in the door she gave the pair a soft smile. Visiting hours start again at eleven.

Fern took a reflexive step back towards the large visitor's chair but her voice took on the authority of a social worker on official duty. "I'm still her acting guardian."

"Yes, but Lux is going to be in radiology for a few hours. We'll call you if anything happens."

Ryan and Fern exchanged a long look and after she slightly shook her head Ryan sighed and rubbed his hand across his neck. After the stresses of today, after Cate-no...no, he was not going to think of Cate, after the everything of today the muscles of his neck were taunt as steel cables. "I'll...find a hotel somewhere."

Concern painted Fern's face as she watched Ryan slink off. Without the doctor to focus on she could see the pieces of his world fracturing around the corners of his eyes. She mulled over the impulse to chase after him but it could not overcome the need to be near Lux. Settling back into her soft chair she took the teenagers hand and contemplated her shrouded light.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Clocks - Coldplay

Lux sobbed in frustration. She was still fleeing in the vast darkness but her legs were so tired now. The bloody cage was almost upon her. It had already sunk twisted barbs deep into her left arm. Lux had screamed reflexively as they had pierced into her flesh, but instead of the pain she had expected they bit in with a terrible numbness that she knew was somehow worse. At first, Lux had thought the darkness was uniform but over time she noticed subtle differences. Sometimes, she heard distant echoing whispering. Sometimes, she ran towards the sound and sometimes away but neither seemed to draw her closer or farther from the voice. Sometimes she felt as if the race itself was moving, as if her feet were beating against the air in her desperate flight - as reality itself was carried off into the air. But recently she had heard something new. A distant tapping and knocking that was gradually growing closer. There was no rhythm in the beat that Lux could find, no pattern at all other than a gradually increasing intensity. Peering into the dark nothingness, Lux willed her eyes to see something. Gradually, she noticed four pale swirlings in the distance. They were running before her but more slowly, letting her catch up. The ends of the swirls moved, taping on an invisible something carried between them.

With a cry of horror Lux finally saw them for what they were. Four skeletons robed in black carrying an enormous coffin between them. The sounds came from their bones rattling and knocking against the wooden sides. Screaming Lux turned away, but wherever she turned they were before her, wherever she looked she was steadily closing on them. Behind her, the cage still chasing gave its shrill cry of rending metal somehow carrying a triumphant note. Now she was close enough to peer into the coffin. Inside was a darker blackness than the world about her, the utter absence of light of a terrible something that nothingness could never quite achieve. The something that she was so desperate to not remember, the something of the world she was desperate to avoid. A maelstrom of numbing death racing inches behind a pit of excruciating life millimeters ahead. Just as her brain chose to accept the monster her body flung itself into the coffin.

For a brief moment Lux heard the distinct click of the coffin's latch being thrown shut, then her eyes snapped open and she was in a coffin. Smooth curved white walls stretched about her as far as she could see. She could feel the pressure of them, only inches from her body. They had the aspect of alabaster or marble. Entombed. Buried alive.

The scream that ripped out of her lungs flew with such force that it arched her back and brought spots to her eyes. The sheer weight of the horror for a time kept the physical pain of her body at bay but such a raging firestorm could not long be held in abatement. Her next howl left a fine misting of blood on the immaculate white walls as the muscles in her throat stretched and split.

* * *

Fern jerked and shifted as a hand on her shoulder gently shook her awake. "Come on, wake up, we need you." The hand shook her shoulder more firmly. Groaning, Fern forced her eyes open. She could not have been asleep for more than half an hour and she was now running on forty three hours with only two hours sleep. Still, years of crisis response forced her upright and towards coherence. A male nurse, maybe the one that had arranged Lux's scans, stood immediately in front of her offering her something in a Styrofoam cup. Coffee by the smell. Taking it and tossing it back with only a small wince, it was hotter than she expected, she concentrated on getting up onto her feet. The nurse was looking at her expectantly. Belatedly, Fern realized he had been saying something. "I'm sorry what?"

"We need you in Radiology. Lux is awake." He offered her his hand but Fern was already stumbling forward, her steps firming by the time she slid the glass door open. The hallways and elevators formed a hopeless labyrinth in Fern's mind, but eventually they stood before another large set of double doors like the ones that led into the PICU. Sliding his card in a reader, the nurse pushed the doors open. Fern instantly heard a sound she knew far too well, the shrieks of a teenager in pain. Needing no further shepherding, she continued farther down the hallway. There were no knobs on the doors, but when she came to the wound from which the sound dominated she noticed a large square plate where the knob should be. Pressing it caused the door to swiftly open with a soft whoosh of the automatic mechanism. On the near wall was an alcove formed by a glass wall stretching two thirds of the way across the room defining a space four feet deep filled with computers. The larger portion of the room was dominated by a large white machine with a circular opening. Protruding from the hall was a metallic plank with a narrow metal cot. On the cot lay Lux thrashing and screaming. One large nurse held her shoulders down while two more held onto her legs. Over her was stretched a large nylon mesh, evidently designed to prevent her from accidentally rolling off, but it was clearly not up to the efforts of the frantic teenager. Barely one hundred pounds and injured as she was, it was clearly all the nurses could do to keep her from moving and reinjuring herself.

From beside Lux where Fern had not at first noticed him, strode Dr. Bastian. "We need to calm her down. I'm reluctant to administer an opiate, it's dangerous on a patient so recently recovered from a coma. But, her heart is not up for this. We're risking another infarction or worse." The kindly overtones of earlier were gone; this side of Dr. Bastian was firm and decisive. Taking her by the shoulders he steered Fern over to Lux's side while a whisper in her guide's ear sent the nurse quickly scurrying from the room.

Gripping the teenager's hand, Fern leaned over her trying to catch her wildly wheeling eyes. "Lux, Lux! Can you hear me? Come on Lux, it's Fern."

* * *

Lux couldn't shake it, the sound of the coffin latching shut. The sensation of being buried alive. Even though she had been pulled out she felt like she was still inside. The reality of being interred was stronger within her than the fact of her freedom. She was aware of the presence of people about her in a hazy insubstantial sort of way, and they were, likewise, less real to her than the memory of the skeletons dancing about in her personal nothingness.

Time stretched and distorted about her. In some ways this moment of pain seemed to last so long that it had no true beginning, but was instead an extension of the fullness of time. At the same time people moved about her with impossible speed. The only clock she was aware of was divided into screaming epochs and breathing eras when she drew breath only to reflexively cast it away again. Yet, this metronome was something she could focus on, something she could escape into to shield her from the pit of memory she had fallen into and still strove to stave off.

The entirety of her body was alive with fiery pain except the arm where the, what had it been? the monster of metal? had bitten into her. The numbness of its venom still permeated her arm further confusing the line between the dream and wakefulness within Lux. Or was it between two dreams?

After uncountable cycles of her new torturous clock a new form swum into her awareness. This person attained marginally more distinct characteristics, gained not because of any particular qualities within her present reality but from a connection to some nebulous time before. Another night before her day. Another wilderness of indistinct forms before C-.

No! Her entire being rebelled away from it. From the descent into memory. Her body seized so tight that she felt something clutch and still within her. Almost immediately a hot grayness started clouding the edges of her vision. There was a burst of sound beside her but it settled away as the bite of nothingness began leaking into her. "The monster" she thought as the nothingness stole over her "its finally caught up with me." Then from within the darkness there was a slash of thought, it seemed to resonate with a "Mommy" but there was no concept connected to the thought. The flicker faded and nothing came to replace it.

* * *

Fern bit her lip in sheer frustration. It seemed like Lux's eyes sometimes settled on her but there were no signs of recognition. The only change that she could see was that Lux's screams gradually subsided into pained mewls and her thrashes became more sporadic as exhaustion settled in. After a few minutes, the nurse returned with a three cc syringe partially filled with a clear fluid. Dr. Bastian stood with the needle poised above the IV port. Eyes focused on Lux and Fern, willing the girl to return to her senses. His heart wrenched at the pain he knew that tiny form before him must have been experiencing, but, now that she was awake, he was loath to risk another coma.

Unsure quite where she acquired it from, Fern found herself in possession of a small linen towel wrapped in plastic. Breaking the sterile seal she took the cloth and bathed the sweat from Lux's face, humming a scrap of a lullaby she had sung the girl when Lux had been six and Fern had worked at Sunnyvale full time.

Gradually the tension of the room eased as Lux's blood pressure gradually dropped from both values well above one hundred toward something more typical of a sixteen years old female. As her body relaxed Lux's eyes spent more and more time focused on Fern. Lux blinked slowly and for an instant Fern swore she saw recognition in her eyes, but it was immediately replaced by terrible blankness. Lux's entire body seized, going as rigid as a plaster mannequin.

Dr. Bastian had spun away from the table and taken a stride across the room before Fern's scream. He had struck a blue button on an intercom before the portable EKG gave its shrill alarm, indicating the sudden flatlining of Lux's pulse. Moving with smooth economy, dropping the syringe filled with morphine into the sharps bin and then pulling open the emergency medical supplies the doctor pulled out the atropine with his right hand while his left turned palm up accepting a newly unwrapped syringe proffered by one of the nurses. The larger nurse physically lifted Fern and carries her away from the table.

A pause in the shilling of the EKG alarm reported the flutter of a pulse induced by the atropine as the stimulant was injected, but it was only a pause. Fern's entire world restricted to that sound, and she wasn't fully aware of a cart and crew of nurses and doctors flooding the room, or of her old shepherd nurse urging her forceful out of the room until the door swooshed shut behind her on its automatic hinges sealing Lux and Lux's medical team away from her. Nor was she precisely aware of the floor rushing up at her as nerves and exhaustion finally claimed the overwrought social worker.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 Where Your Eyes Don't Go – They Might Be Giants

Lux stifled a small inward sob. She didn't know how many more times she could have this dream without losing it completely. She couldn't say how many times she had had it, or even if there was really more than one dream. Every time there was awfulness that was chasing her, and every time her flight plunged her headlong into something which was somehow impossibly worse. But even in her fall she sought to avoid it and so fell back into the dream, once again the prey of the awful.

The question of how long this had been going on had finally become entirely meaningless. In a reality without time each moment is in and of itself an eternity no farther or nearer to the beginning or end than any other. The only metric she had was a gradual creeping weakness. It had started with the total nothingness of her arm, as if it were connected by flesh but had somehow been excised from her soul. But now her entire body was heavy, sluggish, resenting the need to run. It was as if the loss of her arm was a real wound and her spirit was slowly bleeding out.

* * *

Fern slid the glass door of Lux's room open, feeling more than guilty. The soft lighting and relative hush of the room, the sound of the EKG had long since ceased to register on the social worker's consciousness, made it feel like a sepulcher and the pallor of Lux's skin made her into a consummate wraith. At one point the room had been crowded but for reasons of their own each had drifted away. The first newcomers to arrive were Laverne and Abby. Abby had looked a little worse for wear but both were primarily anxious to see Lux. Lux, for her part, had looked fairly good. It had been a day and a half since her last heart attack and her color had largely returned to normal. She was still heavily bandaged but her bruises were beginning to soften from their darkest purple hues. But these signs of life were mocked by the lifelessness of her strange coma.

Dr. Bastian, in mounting frustration, had called in a cavalcade of specialists. The radiologists confirmed that there was no physical break between the brain and the body. The neurologist had confirmed there was damage to Lux's motor cortex but nothing that would explain her pervasive lack of response to any but the most basic of stimuli. The absence of any transition to beta or delta waves had also concerned him greatly. It had been the psychologist who had finally provided a diagnosis: astimulative catatonia. Lux wasn't truly comatose, but her mind was, at some level, refusing to return to reality.

Amid the turns of the specialists Mr Bazile, Baze's father had finally learned that Lux was still alive, Fern's message having been misunderstood to include Lux within Nathaniel's condition. In arranging for his son's funeral he sought to have Lux interred with her father. He had called every possible hospital and funeral home near where they had told him the car accident was, and when no Lux Cassidy had turned up, he had examined every Jane Doe he could get word of in search for his grand daughter. He had even driven to the scene of the accident and searched the steep embankment for signs of a body missed by the paramedics. Finally, desperately, he had badgered K100 into giving him Cate's emergency contacts in the desperate hope they knew what had become of Lux. He had shown up on Laverne's doorstep looking closer to death than the hospitalized youth. Abby had yelped upon opening the door, and, after learning who he was, had, despite being a fully licensed therapist, entirely failed to comfort him. Indeed, Mr. Bazile had not really believed Lux lived until Abby had physically escorted him into Lux's room. The older man had, perhaps for the first time in his life, entirely lost control and flung himself upon Lux. A nurse, who had been watching through the glass, had promptly ejected him from the room for an hour to compose himself.

The radio station had spent a few days playing the best of Morning Madness and ,after they couldn't justify keeping Ryan off the air, had at least consented to postpone a number of events allowing Ryan to maintain his vigil.

Fern for her part had used up most of her vacation days. But the last heart attack had occurred two and a half days after the accident and the astimulative catatonia has persisted. One day later had melted into five and five had ground into fifteen. People too had gradually been ground away. Laverne had returned to her favorite husband, Captain Morgan, and was too drunk when Abby got off work to come. Abby, pursuing her Psy.D., doctor of clinical psychology, could only dodge school work for so long. Mr. Bazile, despite being generous with his money in regard to Lux's medical bills, tearfully admitted he couldn't handle feeling so helpless. His wife still had not accepted the veracity of her son's death and could not be persuaded to visit Lux. Trina, Ryan's boss had finally called an end to the DJ's grieving period and had insisted that he attended at least some promotional events. Ryan had quit on the spot, but both Fern and Dr. Bastian had persuaded him that giving up his job would not help Lux, and he had, with some difficulty begged for his job back. But "some promotional events" had become a major engagement every third day. Fern, for her own part, had finally, reluctantly, gone back to work. The life of a social worker is dominated by hard decision, by playing triage with people's, with children's, lives. Before her leave had run out, Fern had returned to the front lines knowing she would need those extra days for some other catastrophe, some other crisis, although she couldn't quite make herself believe that any other would touch her quite so deeply.

And so Lux's room had grown still and quiet like so many of the others, entirely devoid of life save for the living ghost of a child laid out upon the bed. Nothing, at first, appeared to have changed in the room, but Fern's eyes were eventually drawn to a small machine attached to the headboard of Lux's bed. Two small tubes connected the inside of Lux's elbow and the inside of her upper thigh to the machine, and between them flowed a steady stream of blood. A small softly smiling nurse, Latasha, one of the regulars Fern had come to know by name, reached up and gently laid her hand on Fern's shoulder warning her against touching anything and letting her know that she had paged for Dr. Bastian when she had come in. They had exchanged a few pleasantries, Fern had asked about the nurse's new puppy, but her attention was clearly diverted and after an awkward silence the nurse had politely excused herself.

More than an hour elapsed before Dr. Bastian, diverted by a crisis with another patient, was able to visit Lux's room. Fern was nearly beside herself with anxiety, the small machine having grown an order of magnitude larger in her imagination and the stream of blood had become the entirety of Lux's life force being drawn out of her. Glancing through the glass and seeing tears in Fern's eyes, a very unusual case indeed, the doctor had quickly crept back to his office and prepared a cup of tea with his own calming herbal blend. When he returned he pressed the mug, a real ceramic mug, not the usual hospital Styrofoam into the woman's hands, not letting go until her longer darker fingers curled reflexively about it. Pulling up one of the metal folding chairs he sat next to Fern. "Around two this morning Lux began suffering a series of seizures. We were able to track down the cause fairly quickly, she has elevated levels of creatinine. She is responding well to Tegretol, an anti-seizure medication. But, elevated levels of creatinine suggest that her kidney's are starting to struggle, so we have had to place Lux on augmentative blood filtration."

"Like dialysis?"

"No. Not yet...but that is where this is headed. Lux has not experienced REM sleep in at least seventeen days. Despite how she looks, Lux isn't really asleep. The body was never designed to go this long without dreaming and the stress of going without it is beginning to take a real toll."

"Meaning...?"

"If Lux doesn't get some real sleep the prognosis is...not good."

"Not good? You mean she's dying! Do something about it. Put her under."

"We've been trying. The problem is most anesthetics produce unconsciousness without REM. We've been dosing her with increasing supplements of dopamine which should trigger her somatic rhythm...but it isn't."

"So what do we do?"

The doctor opened his mouth and then closed it. "We have a neuro- sleep specialist flying in from Vancouver the day after tomorrow."

"You don't know, do you?"

Bastian shook his head slightly. "Do you...have any...subscribe to...any particular...faith?"

Fern shook her head dejectedly, "Not really."

"well have a little faith in Lux. She's made it this far."

* * *

Lux sobbed in frustration as she fell through the hole back into the dream again. She had had enough. Had enough of running. Enough of being chased. Finally, somewhere, there flared a new emotion. Not of fear, of regret, of avoidance, there abruptly blazed anger, rage. She turned and faced her tormentor, where she knew her tormentor would be coming from. There were no words in her thought. It was too primitive, too small, too newly reformed, but there was power and need. A need for cessation. A need for control. This intention blazed incandescent across the nothingscape. For the briefest instant it connected with the awful. A true point in time, too brief even for a moment to elapse it flickered, and the beast of metal and glass exploded with such force there wasn't even any sound, just a single concussive sphere racing away from the singularity where thought touched construct. Fragments cut into Lux, some cut into her badly, but she had known that this would happen. That pain was the consequence for rebelling against fear, and yet, within her that rebellion existed and that part of her accepted the pain.

And there within the fear, within the rebellion, within the anger, there was some one, a nameless presence that was the owner of that incandescence. So hot was it now that it gave off no light she could see but the heat of it burned away at the nothingness revealing another reality, full and whole, but every element of it engulfed by the nothingness. Atoms of it were burned free, molecules of it, patches and runs. Turning about she saw the hole but her perspective of it had changed. It was not a pit but a disk turned on its side so thin as to be nothing. Indeed the disk was nothing, and she had only been jumping from side to side each in the same place. There was nowhere to fall to, she was where she was. And the light remembered that it had a name and the reality remembered that it had a name and it's name was Lux and there was no place to escape to because the portal within Lux fell into Lux and no way to escape this place because even the nothing could not erase what was really there. And it hurt. So much. Beyond the ability of this coalescing Lux to express. But it was real, and she had said it before, she had always only wanted something real.

But that meant accepting what was real. Everything that was real. Turning, she pulled a fragment of glass from where it had been embedded into her chest and through her heart. Looking at the bright blood on the edge of the transparent dagger there was a moving image like a repeating gif. Holding it to her eye she was suddenly in the jeep. Everything was good. Impossibly good. She was on a road trip with her parents. And they were getting along. They had been playing, flirting all day. Even their current argument was banter not a fight. She may have asked Baze out onto it for the wrong reasons but she wouldn't change it for the world. She could almost kiss Gavin. The jeep pulled out around the something that had been in front of them, it was hazy in this reliving, but when she looked up to see what lay beyond it, she had never been this far from home before, the bus was very clear. "Um, guys?" she had said, trying to get their attention, and when that didn't work she had yelped "bus, bus!" pointing ahead. But Baze hadn't looked forward, he had turned back to look at her.

The actual impact was so fast it was hard to put two events in any kind of order, let alone the entire experience. All of the glass in the world had exploded around her. The jeep had slowed and then started moving backward while she kept going forward. The seat belt around her middle cinched into her waist but her top half kept going forward. The front half of the jeep crumpled in on itself. A mist of blood flew back and hit her in the face. Baze's face had been ripped away from her, his torso swinging like a baseball bat to hit the dashboard. A soft sudden grunt from where Cate had sat. Exploding airbags. The back of the jeep starting to crumple the passenger seat digging into her leg. Her forward glide cut short her body twisting to the side like Baze's had. Gaining speed. The console breaking off and hitting her in the chest. Her neck cracking like a whip. Her face connecting with Cate's seat. An ocean of darkness consuming her.

* * *

The overhead lights had switched over to their half light setting a few hours ago and Fern's eyes burned from trying to read in the inadequate light. Sleep was creeping up on her and she had no real reason to fight it when a difference in pattern dragged her back from the slope. Lux's EKG was racing and the girl's bright blue eyes were open wide, as was her mouth, but still neither was enough to allow the sheer enormity of her cry to escape her body.

~~Author's Note~~

I always have mixed feelings about these so I'll keep it brief. First, this is and isn't a death fic; that is, while the introduction to the story, and one of its primary drivers, is the death of two major characters, who they are and how they died should be immediately evident. More to the point, I don't plan on anyone else dying, although I won't absolutely swear against it, I'm too big a fan of Joss Whedon for that, but it would necessitate a pretty big shift from my basic outline. Moreover, I assert that the cause of death is highly plausible given an in cannon scene from the episode Father Unfigured. I also don't really mean for this to be a downer story. This story starts dark and fades to gray very very slowly. But I don't mean to write a tragedy, and do mean to find the light before the end. But it's kinda like Dante – sometimes you have to go down to go up.

I generally avoid reading descriptions – they tend to spoil the plot, but if you really need one the basic premise is what if a near miss in farther unfigured were to play out significantly differently.

This is my first fanfiction and any comments would be greatly appreciated. If you really like something, please leave accolades and if your really hate something don't be afraid to leave criticisms. Although, in either case, explaining why would be greatly appreciated.

Two quick questions:

Are these chapters too short?

Is Teen a reasonable rating? I tried not to be excessively graphic while still keeping some emotional response to the accident. There is also the one f bomb, which in ~9k words (and few if any in the near future) doesn't seem that bad...and it seems reasonable in context to me. But I'm worrying about it. Thoughts?


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